System and method for data sharing between members of diverse organizations

ABSTRACT

A system and method is adapted to utilize the Internet as a medium for providing information and data management and sharing of data between diverse project team members. The project team members may be part of diverse functional organizations within one or more larger organizations, may be geographically separated, or may utilize differing information management tools to perform their work activities. Each team may have its own organization separate from the organization from which the team members are drawn. Moreover, the information and data may be financial, technical, marketing and the like.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority benefit to U.S. Provisional PatentApplication Serial No. 60/225,123, filed Aug. 14, 2000, the disclosureof which is hereby expressly incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates generally to managing data and information, andmore particularly, to methods and apparatus for managing data andinformation between diverse organizations and data management systems.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART

There are many tools available today that facilitate the sharing ofinformation and data. For example, the use of E-mail is prevalent in themodern organization. Local and wide area network technology permits thesharing of information via shared storage areas (e.g., a global shareddrive). The Internet and Intranet technologies permit the sharing ofinformation by way of homepages and the like. There are alsoapplications, such as the Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino applications,designed to facilitate the exchange of data and information. Otherapplications are known that fulfill the needs of data entry, for examplespreadsheets and the like, but these applications are not designed fornor are they well suited to track information in addition to data.

Each of these tools has certain advantages and limitations, particularlywhen viewed in connection with project management. For example, most ofthese tools are discrete. That is to say, they do not effectively permitthe integration of information and data. For example, E-mail carries amessage and may carry additional information by way of attached files.An Internet or Intranet homepage contains information or links toinformation from various sources. None of the tools facilitatescollaborative efforts in connection with the development and editing ofthe information. In most cases the integration of information and datais accomplished off-line, not in real time, and then reported usingthese various tools.

An additional limitation exists in that all participants in a projectmay not use the same tools, may not have all the necessary toolsavailable to them or may encounter institutional limitations in theirability to use the tools they have available. For example, where twolarge organizations collaborate in a project, these organizations mayhave security restrictions that limit the project participants fromaccessing, using and modifying information and data retained within thevarious organizations' information management systems. Moreover, theorganizations may use differing applications with limited or nocompatibility.

The project room, i.e., a physical conference room or “war room,” hasbeen often used to assist in managing a project by providing a commonarea where project participants can keep and share data and information,where project tracking information may be displayed and shared, andwhere the project members and project managers can meet to assign tasksand to track the progress of the project. The significant limitationwith the project room is that the information and data is onlyaccessible from the project room. The project participants may not bephysically co-located, and in fact, may be located on differentcontinents and in different time zones. Online meeting tools, such asthe Microsoft NetMeeting application or the Lotus Sametime application,permit the project participants to meet and confer without beingco-located, but still do not provide a convenient mechanism forpermitting the project participants to collaborate and share informationand data or to provide notifications to project participants that thereis new information and/or data available.

Thus, there is a need for a system and method for better managing thesharing of information and data and for managing the collaborativeefforts of team members.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is block diagram representation of a system in accordance with apreferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram representation further illustrating theteamwork tool illustrated in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of the teamwork tool illustrated inFIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram representation of teams defined within theteamwork tool and in accordance with a preferred embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram representation of a team of the teams andsub-teams illustrated in FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a graphic representation of a team web page in accordance witha preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 7 is a graphic representation of a portion of the web pageillustrated in FIG. 6;

FIG. 8 is a graphic representation of a portion of a team web pageassociated with documentation entry into a teamwork tool in accordancewith a preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 9 is a graphic representation of a portion of a team web pageassociated with issue entry into a teamwork tool in accordance with apreferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 10 is a graphic representation of an issue notification;

FIG. 11 is a graphic representation of a team web page associated with acalendar feature of a teamwork tool in accordance with a preferredembodiment of the invention;

FIG. 12 is a graphic representation of a portion of a team web pageassociated with a document tracking feature of a teamwork tool inaccordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 13 is a graphic representation of a portion of a team web pageassociated with creation of a virtual team room environment within ateamwork tool in accordance with a preferred embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 14 is a graphic representation of a portion of a team web pageassociated with a subscription feature of a teamwork tool in accordancewith a preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 15 is a block diagram representation of a data entry entity withina teamwork tool in accordance with a preferred embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 16 is a block diagram representation of a physical activitydescription and associated reporting elements within a teamwork tool inaccordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 17 is a graphic representation of a portion of team web pageassociated with the creation of a physical activity description within ateamwork tool in accordance with a preferred embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 18 is a graphic representation of a portion of team web pageassociated with the entering of data into the teamwork tool inaccordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 19 is a graphic representation of a portion of team web pageassociated with the reporting of data from within the teamwork tool inaccordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 20 is a graphic representation of a portion of team web pageassociated with an alternate reporting of data within the teamwork toolin accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 21 is a graphic representation of team interaction within a virtualteam room environment in accordance with a preferred embodiment of theinvention; and

FIG. 22 is a graphic representation of team interaction within a virtualteam room environment in accordance with an additional preferredembodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The invention is described in terms of several preferred embodimentsthat should be taken to be illustrative of the invention and notlimiting thereof. For example, the invention is described in terms of asystem and method adapted to utilize the Internet as a medium forproviding information and data management and sharing between diverseproject team members. That is to say, the project team members may bepart of diverse functional organizations within one or more largerorganizations, may be geographically separated, or may utilize differinginformation management tools to perform their work activities. Moreover,while the information and data described in connection with thepreferred embodiments is generally financial in nature, the invention isnot limited to the management and sharing of financial information. Forexample, the invention may be used to manage technical information anddata such as product design specifications and testing data, marketingand demographics data such as product promotion and target audiencedata, and the like without departing from the fair scope of theinvention.

In accordance with the preferred embodiments of the invention, a systemand method provide for the capture and tracking of information and datainput to the system by numerous diverse team inputs. The teams may bebased upon the organization of the project entity or entities (e.g., thecorporate organizations) or may be organized in view of the particularproject. The invention has applicability to any large project thatincludes multiple sub-projects having multiple and diverse sources andusers of project information and data. The invention has particularapplication where the team members are not physically collocated.

In additional aspects of the invention, the information and datareceived from the many sources is presented to project participants andmanagement in a consistent manner. For example, project informationassociated with particular issues or concerns is presented in aconsistent format or with consistent identifiers that facilitatemanagement review. Information and data are made readily available tothe team members that use the information and data to do their work.Management is provided a consistent mechanism for disseminatinginformation, assigning and tracking tasks and raising and responding toissues.

The system and method further provide functions in connection with theinformation and data such as notification on the arrival of newinformation or data, information and data archiving and information anddata tracking and reporting functions. For example, when a document isrevised, it is possible to save the document as a “New Revision.”Document information, such as author, date, subject, and currentrevision number, as well as each version of the document, are retainedin a virtual team room environment. Thus, the team members may view therevision history of a document and/or access prior versions of thedocuments. The document revision information may also be used inpresenting the information and data to non-team members and/ormanagement. For example, presentation may be limited to only the latestversion of a document when the document is being viewed from outside thedocument management function.

In addition to the information and data management features of theinvention, in accordance with another preferred embodiment of theinvention, these management features are combined with instantcommunications tools to permit real time collaboration on documents orother information and data.

It will be appreciated that the invention may be implemented as anInternet-based tool to support the project teams. Use of a wide areanetwork, such as the Internet or an Intranet, permits team members thatare geographically and time-zone separated to work with a single sourceof information, thus providing a highly collaborative workingenvironment.

Many additional aspects and features of the invention will becomeapparent to one of ordinary skill in the art from following furtherdetailed description of the preferred embodiments of the invention.

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2 of the drawings, a system 10 for managingcommunications and collaborations among team members 10 includes ateamwork tool server 12. The teamwork tool server 12 is coupled to afirst user or client 14 via an unsecured wide area network 16, such asthe Internet. A second user or client 18 is coupled to the teamwork toolserver 12 via a secured wide area or local area network 20, such as acorporate secured intranet. This allows access from secured network 16and unsecured network 20 at the same time.

The teamwork tool server 12 may be a personal computer or other suitableserver capable of supporting a web-based application written using theLotus Domino development tools, HTML programming language, JAVA or othersimilar web development languages. As such, and as well known in theart, the teamwork server 12 will include a processor and associatedmemory and storage within which a control program that directs theoperation of the processor is retained and further in which data,including documents, information, numeric data, and the like may bestored. The teamwork server 12 is also to coupled to a security server24.

Referring more particularly to FIG. 2, the teamwork server 12 may accessboth a global directory 26 and a local directory 28. The globaldirectory 26 may contain data associated with all members of a groupincluding all possible users of the system 10, whether team members orvisitor/guest users, and for each such user includes at least a useridentification. The local directory 28 contains data entries associatedwith the particular users of the system 10, and may further utilize theuser identification employed in the global directory.

Functionally, and referring to FIG. 3, the teamwork server 12 includes ateam room entity 30 and a data management entity 32. A communicationlink 34, such as a data bus, links the team room entity 30 and the datamanagement entity 32 such that information may be shared andsynchronized between the two entities, as will be described. Moreover,while shown implemented together on the teamwork server 12, it will beappreciated that the team room entity 30 and the data management entity32 may be separately implemented and operated.

TEAM ROOM

In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, projectparticipants, i.e., users of the system 10 or team members, using theteam room entity 30, define one or more team rooms in a virtualenvironment to support the overall project. Generally a large projectwill be broken into smaller sub-projects and a virtual team roomenvironment is created for each of these sub-projects. For example,within the team room entity 30 there may be defined a number of teams,and teams 1−n are illustrated in FIG. 4. These virtual team roomenvironments are accessed through the unsecured network 16 or thesecured network 20 or other networking architecture, and facilitate thesharing of information and the linking of data for diverse groups ofusers. That is, each team member is given access to a virtual team roomenvironment supporting the project or sub-project associated with thatteam and that the team member is involved with.

Multi-levels of access may be provided. For example, an open levelaccess may be provided that permits access by a wide number of users toa limited selection of project information and data. A restricted levelof access may be provided such that only team members, management andother authorized users may access, modify, add or delete projectinformation and data retained within a team room. Wide access toselected project information allows everyone within the organization andincluded within the global directory 26 a level of participation in theproject. Restricted level access to only those team members or usershaving a profile within the local directory 28 ensures the integrity ofthe information and data, as these users will be the only users withauthority to enter or edit information and data within the virtual teamroom environment.

The security server 24 and the local directory 28 cooperate to providethe multiple levels of access. The security server 24 is invoked uponaccess by a user to the teamwork server 12. The security server 24operates to verify a user's identity based upon an entry within theglobal directory 26, and upon verification of such, the user may begranted access to the teamwork server 12. Within the local directory 28,associated with the user, is a user profile that defines the level ofaccess granted to the user. For example, users unknown to the localdirectory 28, i.e., not having a profile, may be granted guest statuswithin the virtual team room environment. Team members and users of theteamwork tool are granted access according to their level ofauthorization. For the client 18 accessing the teamwork server 12 viathe secured network 20, a verification process utilizing the securityserver 24 may not be required. Upon access to the secured network 20 bythe client 18, the security server 24 is invoked to verify the user'sidentity. Access to the teamwork server 12 from the secured network 20therefore would not require a further verification, although one may beprovided if deemed necessary for security purposes.

FIG. 5 illustrates the structure of one of the teams supported by theteamwork server 12. The team 40 includes a plurality of sub-teams 42-47,which may themselves include sub-teams 54 and 56. Sub-team 54 is showndedicated to sub-team 43 while sub-team 56 supports activities ofsub-teams 44 and 46. Supporting team 40 and each of the sub-teams is alayer of team room functions 58, such as documentation management,calendar, issue, assignment, news and the like. Each team and sub-teammay have its own organization separate from the organization from whichthe team members are drawn. For example, the organization may have afunctional organization, while the team is organized by productcategory. Thus, the virtual team room environment can support activitiesfor a number of different organizational structures.

The environment for the team room may be configured to appear to theuser as a web page. FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary team room web page60 configured as a home page. The page 60 is split with a navigationframe 62 disposed on a left hand side of the page 60 and a view frame 64on the right hand side. By linking to information from the navigationframe 62, users can view the contents of those links in the view frame64, which is generated responsive to clicking the associated link. Onelink is identified, for example, as link 66. The links are separated andarranged into several groups, and two groups 68 and 70 are shown in FIG.6. Additional groups of links may be used. The purpose of separating thelinks by groups is to provide to particular users links that areavailable to them for use according to the granted level of access tothe team room. For example, a team leader may have access to the firstgroup 68 of links relating to team room administration and to the secondgroup 70 of links relating to general team room functions. A team membermay only have access to the second group 70 of links, and would not bepresented with the first group 68 of links. A guest user may bepresented still a third group of links associated with access permittedto guest users.

The page 60 may contain active graphics and provide team room membersvarious pieces of information upon entering. For example, the page 60may identify the team leaders 72 and the team members 74 and may furtherprovide an indication of the team room members presently in the teamroom and available for collaboration via a chat room or otherinteractive environment, which may be joined or entered via another link(not depicted). The page 60 may include graphics and images within theview frame 64 and links to help pages 78. The particular arrangement ofthe team room home page 60 is not particular to the invention, and itshould be appreciated that numerous adaptations may be created.

As noted, the links 68 and 70 allow the users to link to and view thecontent associated with the link. Exemplary links 70 may include aproject home page link to take the user to the project home page; a teamhome page link to take the user back to the particular team home pageand a table of contents link providing a listing of the availablecontents of the team room. Management, organization and informationsharing links may be provided including a news link; a calendar link; ameetings link; an assignments link and a documents link.

The many purposes for the team room include being the informationrepository for the sub-project. This information may include meetingminutes of all types, reports and presentations, issues and calendar andnews items. This information is stored within the memory and storage ofthe teamwork tool server 12 as documents as described more fully below.Additional information may include project or sub-project Numeric Data,assignment distribution and tracking information and team collaborationinformation also described more fully below.

The types and format for information and data that the team room willaccept is defined, e.g., a document, issue, assignment, calendar item ornews. In addition, the information and data may be organized by thesub-team, category or event to which it is relevant. Definition andorganization of the information and data facilitates its use and reviewby the team members and by visitors to the team room. Referring to FIG.7, information is added by clicking within the navigation frame 62 onthe information type that is to be created, e.g., documentation, asillustrated at 80. If there is a sub-category for the information, suchis selected at 82. Finally, the new document button is selected at 84,and a new document form 86 (FIG. 8) will appear in the frame 64.

The new document form 86 is arranged to facilitate entry of variousinformation about the new document, and it is divided into a basicinformation section 88, a content section 90, a reviews section 92, anactive/inactive section 94 and an email notifications section 96. Thebasic information section includes fields for subject 100, document type102, category 104, associated events 106 and associated sub-teams 108.The content section 90 is a general text field. The reviews sectionallows the team member entering the document information to identify theadditional team members who will be responsible for the review of thedocument. The actual reviewer(s) is selected from a list 110 ofpotential reviewers that is restricted to particular team members ormanagement. This ensures that documents are not widely disseminatedwithout having first been reviewed by an authorized team member ormanagement. Alternatively, the team itself may be designated byselecting box 113. A due date for the review may also be assigned at112, but is not required. Advantageously, information may becommunicated to the team members for informational purposes bydesignating the team as the reviewer and not assigning a due date. Thedocument may be marked as active or inactive or may be set to becomeinactive after a predetermined period of time, 111. Ordinarily adocument will be marked as active and then later edited to becomeinactive. Pressing the save and close button 114 does the same.

In order to preserve the currency of the information retained within theteam room, an auto-deletion feature may be added to the team roomfunctionality. After a specified amount of time, the author and/ordesignates of a document, issue, assignment or other item of informationretained within the team room is notified that the information hasbecome dated. At that time, the author may be requested to update theinformation, archive it or delete it. Absent a response from the authorto one or more requests to update the information, an automatic deletionor archiving process may take place.

There exists multiple document types, and the various document typesaccepted are also defined. Additionally, electronic files may bedeposited within the team room in the format of the application used tocreate them. The electronic files retained within the team room may bedownloaded to the participant's local machine, e.g. the client 14 or theclient 18, and read using a similar application used by the author tocreate the file, edited if desired and reposted to the team room forsharing. The document may be saved on the participant's local machineand transmitted via other means to non-team colleagues if desired.Threaded discussion may also take place within the team room on anydocument stored there.

A feature of the team room is that any team member may raise an issue atany time, and a team member does so by creating an issue (e.g., an issuedocument) using a procedure similar to that outlined in FIGS. 7-8,above. Upon selecting the new issue link from the navigation frame 62 tocreate a new issue, a new issue form 120 appears in the view frame 64(FIG. 9). The new issue form is similarly laid out as the new documentform 86, and is divided into a basic information section 122, a contentsection 124, a reviews section 126, an active/inactive section 128 andan email notifications section 130. The basic information sectionincludes fields for subject 132, category 136, associated events 138 andassociated sub-teams 140. The basic information section also includes apriority selection 150 for the issue. The priority may be color codedwith red corresponding to high priority, yellow medium priority andgreen low priority, or other conventions may be used.

The content section 124 is a general text field. The reviews sectionallows the team member entering the issue to identify the additionalteam members who will be responsible for the review of the issue. Theactual reviewer(s) is selected from a list 142 of potential reviewersthat is restricted to particular team members or management. A due datefor the review may also be assigned at 144. The issue may be marked asactive or inactive. Ordinarily an issue will be marked as active andthen later edited to become inactive, or expire automatically by settingan expiration date 146. Pressing the save and close button 148 does thesame. Upon saving and closing the new issue form 120, if thenotifications option 130 has been selected, an email notification 152(illustrated in FIG. 10) is sent to the reviewers. The new issuedocument itself is not sent to the reviewer, instead a link 154 isprovided in the notification 152 that takes the reviewer to the teamroom and the opens the issue document. In addition, additional emailnotifications may be provided to the issue assignor and/or assignee atlater dates, and may be specified relative to the due date. Of note isthat if the reviewer is not within the secured network, before beingprovided access to the team room and the issue, the security server 24is invoked.

To avoid issue overload, upon raising an issue the team member mustassign a reviewer, e.g., a member of the team. The reviewers may be arestricted sub-set of the team members, and for example may be the teamleader(s) and/or their delegates. Until the reviewer has reviewed theissue it is not made available to all of the team members nor may it beraised to management. Since issues typically result in the making ofassignments, the team room may be configured to automatically generateassignments when an issue is raised. Issues and issue-generatedassignments may be distinguished from ordinary assignments either by aseparate designation, or by the identification of the reviewer inassociation with the issue-generated assignment. Assignments may also becoded to distinguish priority. For example, an icon may be disposedadjacent the assignment, the color or shape of which identifies theimportance, priority, urgency or other characteristic of the assignment.

Another feature of the team room is a team calendar and news function.Any team leader can add items to the team calendar, and all team membershave access to the team calendar. An example of the team calendar 170 isillustrated in FIG. 11, which upon selection of the calendar link fromthe navigation frame 62 appears in the right frame 64. Illustrated inthe view frame 64 are calendar pages 172 displayed by day, week, monthor year. Across a top of the calendar pages 172 are buttons 174-178 thatallow for the creation of new events, meetings, allow for manipulationof calendar display and allow access to help or cancel activities.

News items, that may added or accessed from a news link within thenavigation frame 62, can be configured to be posted by any team member,or posting and editing of news items may be limited to the team leaderor designates to avoid generating too many news items. Similarly,responses to news items may be limited to particular team members, butnot necessarily so.

In connection with the purpose of the team room for tracking theprogress of the project or sub-project, milestone events in the projectmay be tracked on the calendar. Similarly, news items may be linked tomilestone events such that upon the passing of the milestone event thenews item is automatically archived.

Of note from the navigation frame 62 (FIG. 6) are the twisties 180disposed next to certain links, for example a link 182 associated withdocumentation. Clicking the twistie expands a list of documents 184(FIG. 12). Under the subjects 186, the documents associated with thatlisted subjects are displayed. Clicking on the document within the list184 takes the user to the document within the team room. The list 184also provides additional information about the document such as creationdate 188, the due date 190, if any, the author 192 and the associatedsub-team 194. The list also permits creation of new documents via thenew document button 196, and help and cancel buttons, 198 and 200, arealso provided. If there are additional files or attachments associatedwith the document, a paperclip icon 202 appears next to the document inthe list 184.

While the team room may represent a sub-project of a larger project, itis also possible for the team itself to create sub-teams (FIG. 5).Information and data, such as documents, news events, and the like, maybe linked to particular sub-teams. Similarly, assignments may be linkedand tracked by sub-team. The sub-team concept may be extended further tocategories under each sub-team. The ultimate level of refinement will bedependant upon the complexity of theproject/sub-project/sub-team/category.

While the calendar function provides a tool for tracking events,meetings, due-dates and the like, a separate posting of events andmeetings provides focus for the team. For example, more attention may bedrawn to critical deadlines by marking it as an event than if the eventonly appeared on the calendar. Preferably the event and meeting data areassociated with the calendar data so that each are updated accordinglyupon the passing of the particular date.

Preferably a “New” function is accessible from each page associated withthe team room for adding issues, assignments, events, milestones,meetings documents, etc. A team member would merely have to click on the“New” button to be taken to appropriate directions for entering theappropriate information and/or data.

In accordance with the preferred embodiments of the invention, thevirtual team room environment is configurable by the users of the teamroom. As noted in connection with the discussion associated with FIG. 6,particular team members, such as team leaders and administrators, aregiven access to additional links beyond those links available to generalteam members. One such link permits the team leader to configure theteam room using a New Team Room template 220 shown in FIG. 13. Thetemplate 220 is arranged to obtain various information about the newteam room, and it is divided into a basic information section 222, ateam member designation section 224 and an additional informationsection 226. The basic information section 222 includes entries toidentify the team room name, whether the team-room is a sub-team andproject identification. The team member designation section 224 permitsentering information associated with the team members including the useridentification by which the user is identified in the global directory.The additional information section 226 permits the configuration of theteam room home page, for example, adding a welcome message and furtherpermits the identification of contact persons associated with the teamroom.

METHOD OF INTERFACING TEAM/PROJECT MEMBERS

A team room, such as described above in connection with a preferredembodiment of the invention, allows team members in a cross-functionalor diverse organization to effectively interact. The team room permitsthe exchange and collaborative development of information and data evenwhere the team participants are not physically collocated. In accordancewith an additional preferred embodiment of the invention, collaborationof team members is further facilitated by use of the team room conceptin combination with communication capability.

In one preferred implementation of this aspect of the invention, theteam room is linked with an E-mail service. Upon entry of information ordata, such as tasks, documents, meeting forms, team news, etc, the teammember may immediately and automatically E-mail a notification to eachteam member that the new information or data exists within the teamroom. This is accomplished by associating an email notification featurewith the creation of each new document entered into the team room. Thenotification does not deliver the actual documents to the recipient, butinstead, provides a link back to the team room such that the team roommembers may then enter the team room to view the new information ordata, add to or modify the information or add commentary.

In another preferred implementation, the team members themselves maydesignate when and how they are informed that new information or datahas been added to the team room. From the subscription profile link onthe navigation frame 64, the team member is taken to a subscriptionprofile form 250 illustrated in FIG. 14. The subscription profile form250 allows the team member to provide a description of the profile 252,designate whether the profile is active 254, designate a search method256 and identify keywords associated therewith 258, and to furtherdesignate whether or not to receive entire discussion threads 260.Similarly, the team member may specify to be informed each time there isnew information or data associated with a particular author, category,event, sub-team or etc.

To further take advantage of the collaborative features of the teamroom, it may also be linked with a real time communication application.For example, the team room may be linked with the Microsoft NetMeetingapplication or the Lotus Sametime application. More simply, the teamroom may be linked with a chat room environment feature. In this manner,online real time meetings of team members with real time collaborationon documents or virtually any information or data retained within theteam room can occur. The participants need not be physically collocatedand the integration of information and data occurs in real time,on-line. Moreover, a reliable version of the information will be inexistence, and will be available for every team member's use.

Referring to FIG. 21, within a virtual team room environment 351, thereis defined team rooms, respectively identified team rooms 352-360, adocument room 362 and a chat room 364. The team rooms may be defined asdescribed above. The document room may be room defined specifically tofacilitate document collaboration between team members, while the chatroom 364 may be just that, a room that allows the team members to enterand exchange thoughts and ideas. A first team member 366 is linked toand participating in team rooms 352, document room 362 and chat room364. A second team member 368 is linked to and participating in teamrooms 354, document room 362 and chat room 364. A non-team member 370may be linked only to the chat room, and a non-participant member 372 isnot linked to the virtual team room environment 350.

Referring to FIG. 22, the team members 366 and 368 and non-team member370 input information 390, i.e., thoughts ideas, documents, etc., intothe chat room 364. Within the chat room 364 team member 366, forexample, may create a task, raise an issue or have a question but isuncertain to which team it should be directed. From the chat room 364,the task, issue or question (issue) 374 is assigned to any combinationof each of the teams 352-360. The team leaders, respectively, can thenrespond to the issue. For example, the team leader of team 354 mayprovide a response 376, indicating that the issue 374 is not one forwhich it has responsibility. This action causes a notification to theoriginal requester, the other assignees and a posting 380 to the chatroom 364. The team leader for team 356 may provide a response,indicating that team 356 is responsible for the request, and may providean answer. This action causes a notification to the original requestorand the other assignees and a posting 382 to the chat room 364. Numerousother interactions may be contemplated.

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ORGANIZING, SUPPORTING AND MANAGING A PROJECT

As facilitated by the preferred embodiments of the invention, a projectmay be supported by team members designated from various entities ofcross-functional or diverse organizations. This is true even where theteam members are significantly separated geographically. The virtualteam room environment described above provides a tool that permits theseteam members to organize, manage and track data and to collaborate. Tofurther facilitate the project, the data collection entity 32 of theteamwork tool server 12 (FIG. 3) provides a numeric data tracking andcollection process.

In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, the projector sub-project itself is defined by a project Roadmap. The projectRoadmap is a collection of physical action descriptions (PADs) that, asthe name suggests, each describe a single discrete action or activitythat must be completed by the team in order to complete the project. Notso literal, however, a PAD can be defined for virtually any discreteaspect of the project whether it is a physical task, the occurrence ofan event, or some other criteria that relates to the successful outcomeof the project. Illustrated in FIG. 15, a physical action description270 is associated to a number of reporting cycles or periods 272-284.For example, data associated with the physical action description 270 isrecorded by years. The data collection entity 32 facilitates thedefinition of the PADs and the corresponding collection and reporting ofthe data.

Referring now to FIG. 16, the data collection entity 32 includes a datacollection function 290 including an attach files function 292 and anaccess control function 294. The data collection entity 32 also includesa data transfer files function 298, which provides utility functions forthe import/export of data from the data collection entity 32.

Data collection begins with the definition of the PAD, and FIG. 17illustrates a template 300 for defining a PAD. The template 300 isarranged to facilitate the collection of certain information, includingan indication of how the data is to be used, i.e., whether the data isto be included during reporting or not, 302, the associated project 304and/or sub-project, 304 and 306, respectively, the name of the PAD, 308,the description of the PAD 310, the action implementation event, i.e.,the milestone that allows one to know the physical action has beencompleted, 312, the date for completion, 314, an assessment of thedifficulty of implementation, 316, the status of the implementation,318, the required approvals, 320, and whether the information is to berecorded against the associated project or another project, 322.

The Roadmap(s) for a sub-project, and the PADs associated therewith, arepreferably linked to and accessed from the team room, and as shown inFIG. 3, may be co-located within the teamwork tool server 12 and linkedvia the bus 34. In fact, the team members define the Roadmap by definingthe PADs. The team rooms are preferably linked to the overall project,and at higher levels within the organization, all of the Roadmaps may beviewed by authorized users. For example, all of the team rooms may belinked under a common web site for the overall project, while specificteam room home pages are created to support the virtual team roomenvironment.

In the example shown in FIG. 15, the physical action description is tiedto the years in which financial results are reported or “booked.” Datamay also be specified to a particular team or sub-team, or to aparticular hierarchy of teams/sub-teams according to the hierarchy ofthe team room. Data is entered by PAD and by year using a data entryform or worksheet 320 shown in FIG. 18 generated by the data collectionform function 290 of the data collection entity 32. Referring to FIG.18, the worksheet 321 includes a portion 322 identifying the variousPADs by teams. Associated with each team is a twistie, one shown astwistie 324, that expands a list 326 of PADs for that team. Adjacent thePAD in the list is an icon 328 that is used to provide information aboutthe PAD. In the financial example presented, a book icon may representthat the financial information for the PAD is being booked to adifferent project than the one particularly identified with the PAD.Additional icons 330, such as a pencil and pad icon or a check markicon, respectively indicate that the worksheet is in progress or isready for review. In addition to the PAD name, 332, the PADs may beidentified by a unique identification number 334. As described in thisexample, data is entered by year, it may also be entered by variousother divisions, such as organizational groups 336. The years areidentified at 338 and the worksheet totals are listed at 340. Alsolisted on the worksheet are the team members 342 responsible forcreating the worksheet and entering the data.

The worksheet 320 provides a common format by which all teams associatedwith the project are required to enter data. The worksheet may includespecifications 344 and 346 for the data, and also includes an ability,via the attach files function 292, to attached supporting documentationin the form of electronic files. The worksheet data and the supportingfiles are then stored within the data collection entity 32. Once theworksheet 320 is completed and released for review, the controlwrite/delete access function 294 limits all but particularly authorizedteam members from changing the data.

The data summary views function 296 permits authorized team members orguests to view the data associated with the PADs. The data may be viewin several report forms, and a report form 350 is illustrated in FIG.19. The report 350 provides a summary by project teams 1−n byorganizational group 336. By clicking on one of the project teams, alist expands to present the PADs associated with the selected projectteam, and the reviewer may further drill down into the data by clickingon twisties, to get to the form 352 illustrated in FIG. 20, where for aparticular team, and for a particular PAD, the data by organizationalgroup 336 is shown. The icons 328 are again used to provide informationabout the data presented, such as the book icon to inform that the datais being booked to a different project. One of ordinary skill in the artwill appreciate that the data may be sorted and report in virtually alimitless number of ways. Several examples have been presented herein toillustrate the flexibility of the invention in the management of thedata and in the association of data with the activities of various teamssupporting a project. At a glance of the report, a user may understand anumber of characteristics of the data and the teams that generated thedata.

As previously noted, in the preferred embodiment of the invention, theRoadmaps, and associated PADs, are integrated with the team roomconcept. The team members therefore define the Roadmaps via that teamroom, and the team room facilitates entry of information and data intothe PADs. Using the on-line collaboration feature, team members maydiscuss, comment, and finally integrate and agree on the datarepresented on the Roadmap.

METHOD AND APPARATUS OF INTEGRATING INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

It is frequently necessary to share information and data betweenseparate organizations. For example, where two corporations jointogether in a joint venture, it may be necessary for respectiveemployees of each corporation to share and collaborate on informationand data. In accordance with the preferred embodiments of the invention,a virtual team room environment is established to support the project.

The team room may be established within either of the organization'sinformation management systems, e.g., as part of either organization'sIntranet. Security issues, however, may dictate against such animplementation. Alternatively, the team room may be established as partof secure web page environment on the Internet. In such an arrangementthe team members would access the team room via the Internet andfollowing an appropriate security logon to the secure area. The functionand features of the team room are preferably as described above,although it will be appreciated that more of less functionality may beprovided without departing from the fair scope of the invention.

IMPLEMENTATIONS

The preferred embodiments of the invention described herein relate to aweb-based tool for providing for the managing of communications,information and facilitating collaboration among team members. Theinvention may therefore be implemented using suitable Internet basedcomputer programming techniques, for example, using the Java programminglanguage or HTML programming elements. It may also be advantageous toleverage and utilize existing data management tools, such as the LotusDomino application, and provide thereto the additional functions andcapabilities described herein.

The foregoing invention has been described in terms of several preferredembodiments that are intended to be illustrative of the broad aspects ofthe invention. One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that theinvention may be otherwise embodied without departing from the fairscope of the invention.

We claim:
 1. A method for managing data among diverse organizations, thediverse organizations including first members of a first organizationand second members of a second organization organizationally diversefrom the first members, the method comprising the steps of: using a datacollection entity to define an activity against which data is to bemanaged; coupling the first members to the data collection entity via afirst network; coupling the second members to the data collection entityvia a second network; providing a global directory coupled to the datacollection entity including an identification for each of the firstmembers and the second members; providing a local directory coupled tothe data collecting entity, the local directory including a user profilefor each of a plurality of authorized users, wherein the authorizedusers are members of one of the first members and the second members;receiving a request for data access with respect to the activity fromone user of the first members and the second members; verifying anidentification for the one user in the global directory; and permittingthe request for data access to a virtual team room environment accordingthe user profile for the one user.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein therequest for access comprises one of a request to view data, a request toenter data and a request to edit data.
 3. The method of claim 1, whereinthe first network comprises one of an unsecured network and a securenetwork.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the unsecured networkcomprises the Internet.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the requestfor access comprises a request to enter data, the method furthercomprising the step of restricting the format of entered data.
 6. Themethod of claim 5, wherein the step of restricting the format of entereddata comprises providing a structured data entry form.
 7. The method ofclaim 1, comprising generating a description of the activity.
 8. Themethod of claim 7, wherein the step of generating a description of theactivity comprises receiving a physical activity description from one ofthe first and second members.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the datacollection entity is associated with a virtual team room environment andthe activity is associated with a team from the virtual team roomenvironment.
 10. A method for managing data among diverse organizations,the diverse organizations including first members of a firstorganization and second members of a second organizationorganizationally diverse from the first members, the method comprisingthe steps of: providing a virtual team room environment; permittingaccess to the virtual team room environment by the first members via afirst electronic network; permitting access to the virtual team roomenvironment by the second members via a second electronic network;defining a team room within the virtual team room environment;associating a plurality of the first members and a plurality of secondmembers with the team room; defining a plurality of activitiesassociated with a project roadmap, wherein each activity includes anactivity description and wherein each activity is associated with theteam room; accepting data from the first team members and the secondteam members via the virtual team room environment, and associating thedata with one or more of the activities.
 11. The method of claim 10,wherein the step of accepting data comprises limiting a format of thedata accepted.
 12. The method of claim 10, comprising providing a reportof the plurality of activities, the report including at least some ofthe data.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of providing areport comprises identifying activities by team rooms.
 14. The method ofclaim 10, comprising associating an activity with a milestone event. 15.A project roadmap comprising: a plurality of activities defined within adatabase structure, wherein the plurality of activities define steps forcompleting a project; linking data associated with each of the pluralityof activities and stored within the database structure; and wherein thelinking data relates the associated activity with a team room, the teamroom being defined within a virtual team room environment supported on ateam room server, and wherein each team room includes first members of afirst organizational group and second members of a second organizationalgroup, disparate from the first organization, the first membersaccessing the team room via a first network structure and the secondmembers accessing the team room via a second network structure.
 16. Theroadmap of claim 15, wherein the database structure and the team roomserver are disposed on a common computing platform.